Many industrial processes operate so that material can accumulate against surfaces. Vertically extending structures, such as walls, horizontally extending surfaces such as floor structures or even roof structures could have a tendency to accumulate material as the equipment is processing or moving material. Angled surfaces could experience similar issues.
One type of equipment for which a perceived need arose to remove such material is a structure similar to that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,987,970, incorporated herein by reference, for a pulverizing mill. Specifically, as the aims rotate and material is processed by that mill, it was discovered that, particularly in moist environments, that the walls of the drum could acquire “caked on” material which could ultimately decrease the performance of the mill, and eventually require the mill to be stopped, the material removed (such as by manually scraping and/or pressure washing) and then restarted.
Accordingly, the applicant determined that there was a need to remove caked on material from the vertically extending walls of that device, and then realized that there may be many other applications which might benefit from removing caked on material from other devices and/or surfaces.